Itinerary:

Friday:

Work and pack most of the day, finally getting excited to go to Costa Rica! I was excited before but it really hadn’t hit me yet.
6 pm - Steph drove Maddy, Kaya and I to the skytrain (I got Thai basil to go so I would be fed). A British man was talking comically loud on Facetime on the skytrain which made us laugh. We met Talia (Kaya and Maddy’s friend from the island/ childhood), she is great, we are all clicking really well! She is working on getting into medical school and is very cool as a cucumber.
8 pm - We finally got checked into our flight (we couldn’t in advance because their site wasn’t working we called and tried). All of our carry on’s were comically heavy and did not fit in the sizer but we pulled it off and go through security relatively smoothly. I almost got dinged on the liquid max but she pushed me through.

11:20 pm - Board our flight to Mexico City…… not a comfy flight, it felt like we were in a sauna. So hot, so tough to sleep in my seat. I did doze off but it was light and I felt like an old man, my knees were not on my side when I stood up to walk around the plane.

Saturday:

Approx 7 am (Mexico time) - We had to go through customs, declare at immigration, and then go back through security., what a rigamarole… We were a little nervous about the timing because the first line was brutal but then things sped up and we got to our gate about 15 mins early.
8:20 am THIS IS WHERE THINGS WENT WRONG FOR OUR GAL MADS - Talia has business class because it was the only way to get on our flights so she boarded ahead again (PS Its her BDAY now May 7!), Kaya and Maddy had zone 2 since Kaya’s dad booked it with a travel mastercard and I was at the end of the zone 3 line…. I could see something was up because Kaya went on but Maddy was talking to border security. My gut told me it was not good but waited till I got up to her. Sadly in the time we were at the airport her immigration slip was lost somewhere in the somewhat hurried journey. She let me know she had to go find it or get a new one and would be back asap.
I got on the plane and updated the girls… we sat and waited as the plane boarded. We waited for a while and then knew Maddy was screwed when the doors closed. uh oh!
We connected to the free flight wifi to learn that she had gone back to immigration, got a new slip and came back just too late! She stood there for 15 mins while we were still parked but they refused to let her in since the doors closed. Bye Maddy :(

The Split:

Ally, Kaya, Talia:

Ricky the flight attendant took a strong liking to Kaya, a lil crush some may say. He told her she was beautiful and kept scratching her head. It was pretty funny since he wasn’t a creep, more just wholesome.

He heard about Maddy and brought us cookies to say sorry. We really weren’t the ones that needed cookies as we were too stunned by what was happening to panic and just laughed. We did some Googling on flights and busses to help figure out a plan to support her.
Like what can you really do at that point the flight is off and Maddy is not on it with us. Other than loosing Maddy the flight was actually pretty solid. Since it was empty Kaya and I were able to take over our own rows and lied down.

Ricky put a blanket on Kaya as she slept since she looked cold. I did not get a goodnight tuck in to bed lmao but I did get myself a blanket after I woke up from my first nap.

My second nap lasted until the plan touched down. I guess they didn’t worry about me because I was not buckled in and literally woke up by being bounced from the wheels hitting the runway. I was so thrown off, what a wake up, haha it cracked me up.

Apparently the landing had quite a sharp rough decent (I wouldn’t know I was dead to the world), Kaya threw up a little. What would Ricky think of that if he saw. She should have left it as a parting gift to remember her by lol.

Maddy:

Meanwhile, Maddy was in damage control mode. She cried to the lady at the gate, VERY FAIR, I would have been a mess. But after getting past the frustration that they wouldn’t let her one while she could see the plane sitting right there, she figured out flight options.

Pay $250 to buy a new flight leaving at 2 pm
Wait for the next Aero Mexico at 9 pm

She ended up going for option 2… She decided to take the day to explore Mexico City… In an attempt to put a positive spin on the situation we have started referring to her adventure as a “main character moment”. We hate that this happened to Maddy but the girls did agree that of any of us, she is the one we are least worried about as she is super capable and takes things in stride. The rest of us probably would not have handled it as gracefully as she has.

I will give a better update when she gets to us here but her plan is to fly to San Jose, sleep in a hostel (or hotel) then take the bus to La Fortuna tomorrow.

We have been in touch with her and she did have an okay day, I feel like she must be just exhausted by now. The latest update I’ve gotten while writing this is that she is getting dinner at Chilis at the airport and will be on her way soon to Costa Rica.

Maddy's Main Character Moment in Mexico (Travel Day)